America’s Kids: The national reckoning over the fate of immigrant children points to persistent public-health problems at home, Annie Lowrey writes. Among similarly wealthy countries, the United States has strikingly high rates of child poverty and illness, and offers limited support to parents and families. In the country’s tobacco industry, underage labor is common, and child workers —some as young as 10—have very few health and safety protections.

Evening Read

The invention of American industrialism, the creation of urban life, changing gender relations, public-health reform, suburbia and its hamburger-loving teens, better living through plastics, and the financialization of the economy: The straw was there for all these things—rolled out of extrusion machines, dispensed, pushed through lids, bent, dropped into the abyss.

You can learn a lot about this country, and the dilemmas of contemporary capitalism, by taking a straw-eyed view.

What Do You Know … About Global Affairs?

Germany’s ruling sister parties are fighting over migration policy. The Christian Social Union, led by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, is campaigning for stricter immigration laws that would block refugees from entering Germany if they’ve already applied for asylum in another European Union country. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who leads the Christian Democratic Union and has supported an open-door policy since 2015, is against the proposition; instead, she hopes to achieve a common EU policy on the matter at the bloc’s upcoming summit. If she can’t, Seehofer has vowed to implement his policy over Merkel’s objections, and the resulting clash could jeopardize Germany’s coalition government.

Can you remember the other key facts from this week’s global coverage? Test your knowledge below:

1. ____________ has used diplomacy and investment to encourage countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Russia, Sudan, and Tanzania to implement its restrictive internet policies.

Urban Developments

Our partner site CityLab explores the cities of the future and investigates the biggest ideas and issues facing city dwellers around the world. Gracie McKenzie shares today’s top stories:

Bus ridership in New York City is in a state of free fall. How can the city keep people on board? Researchers surveyed a group with a unique perspective and an intimate understanding: Brooklyn bus drivers.

Much of the attention around affordable housing in the U.S. has tended to focus on cities including New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. But most Americans live in the suburbs—where the need for affordable housing can be just as acute, and the dynamics more complex.

Reader Response

Maybe distracted parenting is a symptom of a busy and depressing society and not the cause of it. We don’t live close to friends and family like we used to ... and also we don’t have adequate time off after birth, nor do we have help ...

Yet when I read articles like this it feels like the shame is placed squarely on the shoulders of the parents. I don’t think this article is wrong, I think it misses the key issue: Parenthood is exhausting and saddening and isolating and laden with guilt. So, what are we to do? Maybe fix the big issues too. Increase connectivity between parents and other parents. Increase parental leave. Increase the amount of in-the-home help by gearing our culture towards that somehow. I don’t even know what that would look like, but somehow ... we should?